The Thistle City Barbican [Adrian Grycuk]

A HOTEL which has housed thousands of asylum seekers over the past four years is set to close in December, after the Home Office was served notice by its landlord.

Islington Council was informed of the decision on Wednesday during a meeting between multiple partners, including contractors and charities.

Several sources who were present at the meeting said they were told the early end to the contract was at the request of the landlord – Clermont Hotel Group. Neither Clermont Hotel Group nor the Home Office would say why they had decided to terminate the contract.

The Thistle City Barbican Hotel, operated by the group run by Malaysian hotelier billionaire Quek Leng Chan, has been home to men fleeing persecution and war as they wait for their applications to be processed.

Councillors and charity workers have made the argument that hotels are unsuitable accommodation for vulnerable people, who often have to wait years for their claims to be evaluated.

But there were fears that closing the Islington hotel would simply mean that asylum seekers are sent to other hotels – or even army barracks – where they will have to contend with worse conditions and access to fewer support services.

Charity workers who have closely supported residents of the hotel said they were “gutted” that it was closing. One refugee support worker, who did not want to be named, told the Tribune: “I’m very sad. If I’d had my way, we would have been one of the last hotels to be closed, because I think the services we provide are the best in London, if not the country. People will be moved to other hotels. It is not solving any problems.”

Councillors, council officers, and volunteers have consistently called on the government to improve conditions in hotels. Clink78 in King’s Cross, which had similarly housed hundreds of asylum seekers, was shut in April.

The Tribune had previously reported on the “vile” conditions inside the hostel, which contributed to soaring rates of mental illness, with some men even trying to hurt themselves.

SEE ALSO HOW HUNDREDS WERE LEFT WAITING AND SUFFERING IN LONDON’S HOSTEL FROM HELL

But charity workers said that there was less to celebrate this time round, as the hotel in Barbican had offered a comparatively better environment for asylum seekers.

One said: “Hotel rooms are awful, people are made sick by being in that accommodation, but unfortunately the situation is that the places they are going to be sent are probably worse, which means that we as Islington wanted to make sure that people were in the best possible place for them, which we felt was Islington.”

Eloise Nee and Cllr Jenny Kay at the recent counter-demonstration showing solidarity with asylum seekers

A letter to Dame Angela Eagle MP, the minister for Border Security and Asylum, was sent by Islington councillors in April this year asking for an improvement to conditions in the hotel and an end to room-sharing.

“We strongly support the government’s plan to end the use of hotel accommodation by 2029”, the letter added.

Council leader Councillor Una O’Halloran said she believed that the council’s lobbying had encouraged the Home Office to close the hotel, and that the decision was not a result of pressure from anti-immigrant protesters. “That hotel for that amount of people was too small,” she told the Tribune. “Everybody shared a room, that shouldn’t be the deal for anybody. I want to see the hotels closed, but I want to see asylum seekers looked-after and processed quicker.”

The Thistle has become a flash-point for demonstrations against asylum hotels over the summer, fuelled by senior politicians and far-right activists, including Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

But Cllr O’Halloran said that the move “is not a win for the far-right”, adding: “To the far-right, get out of our borough. To the mums that are concerned, whatever their reason, you’re not fascist, you’re not racist, you’re just concerned.

“Refugees and asylum seekers will always be welcome in this borough. They have come here, whatever the circumstances, to make a life. We should be doing all we can to support them.

“But I don’t believe that anyone should be put in a hotel. Even if they have their own room. I don’t think it’s healthy when they are there for months.”

Council leader Councillor Una O’Halloran

The leader further said that she “did not agree with some of the language” which has been used by the Labour government in its discussion of asylum seekers. Residents of the hotel must now wait to find out where they will be moved.

Cllr O’Halloran said: “I don’t know where they are going to be moved, but I would like to think that the government has compassion.”

Defence secretary John Healey told the BBC last week that the government was looking at expanding the use of military sites to house asylum seekers. Military sites in Essex and Kent are already being used to house those awaiting claims, after being opened under the previous Conservative government.

Charity workers, who have built services for the asylum seekers from the ground-up over the past four years, re-iterated that residents of the hotel would be missed.

The anti-racism demonstration last month

One told the Tribune: “Some people lived here for four years, some people lived here for one month. They were just as much Islington residents, and they have forever left their mark here. I don’t want it to be ‘they were the hotel’.

“They were literally thousands of people who came here and contributed to our community. They volunteered in shops, sat next to us on the tube, dated our friends. They were wonderful members of the community and I don’t want that to be forgotten.”

A spokesperson for Clermont Hotel Group, which owns the Thistle Barbican, said: “After consultation with all parties involved, the current contract operating the former Thistle City Barbican hotel will come to an end as of 11 December 2025.

“The Home Office and the relevant authorities will work with us to coordinate the transition”.

The Home Office would not comment on the closure of the Thistle City Barbican Hotel, but a spokesperson said: “This government inherited an asylum system in chaos, with tens of thousands of individuals in hotels waiting for their claims to be heard.